I was curious if the students who are enrolled in the content classes, at say, HCT taking a class in finance, are a little more motivated of serious than the ones forced to take the regular classes like ESL?

Normally called "foundations" in the UAE. (PYP is mostly used in Saudi)

Nearly every student in content courses comes through Foundations, but yes... most are more motivated in content courses. We must be honest, that EFL courses are pretty much a boring slog to some institutionally defined score.

This was in Oman, but one of my worst behaved male students ever in my foundations course turned into Mr Serious Hard-Working Best-behaved member of my business content course.